| ‘Primitive’ cell inspires advanced robot mini-sub |
|
|
‘Primitive’ cell inspires advanced robot mini-sub
Technology company Nekton Research has built a number of robots mimicking the design of insects and reptiles. Their latest attempt to capture ‘the essence of a biological organism’s motion’ is modelled on a Paramecium, a single-celled creature with a single moving part. The understanding of its motion (called helical klinotaxis) and sensory system was applied to a robot. This produced probably the world’s smallest ‘autonomous underwater vehicle’ (AUV) called the MicroHunter, about the size of a cigar. It can turn on a dime, and it is so manoeuvrable in three dimensions that a former US Navy SEAL acting as underwater goalie couldn’t stop most of a swarm of them passing him to a reach a target (a light beam). These ingenious machines are said to be ‘changing the way people are thinking about doing oceanography’. Source
How much more ingenious is the One who programmed these organisms (which are much smaller than the man-made device) in the first place! |
|||


